Ocean Trash Turns into Art at San Francisco Exhibit
Some of the 30 trash-created creations at the San Francisco exhibit. (Photo: Marianne Hale)
Some artists use oil paints, watercolors, or clay to create their masterpieces. Angela Haseltine Pozzi works with trash.
Her “Washed Ashore” exhibit, on view at the San Francisco Zoo, showcases enormous sculptures constructed from garbage found on the beach.
From afar, the artful creations look like giant, colorful sea creatures. But closer up is an ugly truth: The objects are made of bottle caps, cans, and lots of Styrofoam from the Pacific Ocean. It’s material with a message.
A giant water-bottle jellyfish. (Photo: Marianne Hale)
“I’ve always believed in creative problem solving and resourcefulness,” Haseltine Pozzi, also executive director of WashedAshore.org, told Yahoo Travel.
Ocean debris — mostly plastic — is one of the biggest problems out there: The largest “landfill“ in the world is in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, according to HowStuffWorks.
The San Francisco exhibit’s 30 interactive objects include a musical seaweed tree made of plastic chairs, pellets, tennis balls, parts of cans, and lids. A bleached coral reef placed along a 100-foot wall is actually Styrofoam.
Say hello to SeeMore, the baby plastic-trash sea lion. (Photo: May Woon)
Then, there’s SeeMore. The baby sea lion “is a big favorite,” the artist said. He’s built entirely of plastic, a material that poses a serious hazard to fish, whales, and, yes, sea lions.
The 56-year-old artist got inspired after she lost her husband of 25 years to a brain tumor. The Bandon, Ore., resident headed to a nearby beach “to heal” but instead “found an ocean that needed healing,” she recalled. The sculptor had found her calling.
In 2010 she began to ask locals to bring her the beach litter they came across. Eventually, she founded her organization and — with help from the parks department — recruited thousands of volunteers to help collect trash, then clean, scrub, and sort it for the pieces she designed.
(Lead artist Angela Haseltine Pozzi assembles a display of percussive fish. Photo: Marianne Hale)
Last year, more than 3,000 volunteers donated 17,000 hours to create 45 artworks from about 12 tons of beach junk.
Hardly any of the litter goes to waste. “We use 95 percent of everything that’s brought,” Haseltine Pozzi said. And there’s always more.
"Washed Ashore” exhibits can be found across the country, including three SeaWorld sites and at the Virginia Aquarium & Marine Science Center. This is all good news for Haseltine Pozzi, who hopes her art can help save the sea.
“We have to get more conversations going about the marine debris and the plastic pollution problem,” she said. "The oceans are everywhere.”
Follow Claudine Zap on Twitter: @zapkidd
(Photo: Marianne Hale)
The artist with a swaying anemone chime. (Photo: May Woon)
